


on equivalent exchange

by bringingglory



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Bickering, F/M, Fluff, Kinda, Love Confessions, Post-Promised Day, aka edward elric is a dumb tsundere boy who cant do feelings, like confessions part 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:14:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25643350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bringingglory/pseuds/bringingglory
Summary: She wanted to ramble on about all the things he had missed while he’d been off studying, because of course even after life-changing events like saving an entire country, he still couldn’t be bothered to call home, but she could feel an odd air of tension hanging between them. It had lingered from the moment he stepped off the train and she had hugged him in greeting. And she had a sneaking suspicion as to why.“Edward,” she said.He nearly dropped his suitcase on her foot. “Huh, what?”Winry sighed. She had to do everything herself, didn’t she?“Are we going to talk about what you said before you left?”
Relationships: Edward Elric/Winry Rockbell
Comments: 12
Kudos: 99





	on equivalent exchange

Winry greeted Ed at the train station the same way she had seen him off when he had left Resembool. She stood on the platform, watching as the train reappeared at the horizon and rushed forward along the track, the distant chugging and churning of the engine filling the air as it approached. 

A plume of smoke shot up into the air as the train screeched to a halt. The door of the train cart in front of her slid open and out stepped Edward Elric dressed in that same long brown coat, carrying his suitcase in his right hand, fingers of flesh and bone wrapping around the handle instead of metal.

“I’m home,” he said.

A grin split her face and she ran forward to hug him. “Welcome back!”

She could feel his arms come up slowly around her, uncertain. A hand patted her back once, twice, before she pulled away to see an almost shy smile creep onto Ed’s face. Wait, that wasn’t right. When did Ed ever look shy?

“How was the trip back?” Winry asked as they made their way off the platform.

“It was fine,” he said. “Long.”

He sidled up beside Winry as they began walking on the path to the Rockbell house. The sun burned high in the sky and spread across the rolling green hills of Resembool, dirt paths snaking through the land unfurling in front of them. A cool breeze floated by, and Winry wondered how Ed felt finally coming home again.

“Do you think you’ve learned all the secrets of alchemy in the West?” Winry inquired.

“Not all,” he said. “But a lot. The way they do alchemy out there is almost like how we do it in Amestris, but they have different array structures I would have _never_ thought of here. They can’t do healing like alkahestry does, but there’s a theoretical transmutation involving—”

Winry laughed because of course even years after he had given up his alchemy, Ed still never stopped thinking about it.

“What’s so funny?” He demanded.

“Nothing,” she giggled. “Any idea of when Al’s coming back?”

He shrugged. “Nope. He said he still has a lot to learn in Xing with Mei, so who knows.”

“Him and Mei, huh?” Winry smiled. “Are _they_ getting married anytime soon?”

Ed’s cheeks pinked oddly. “Who knows.”

She eyed him curiously. Ed normally acted like his birthright as an older brother was to tease and embarrass Al as much as possible, so why was he acting so subdued?

She glanced up at him—and she still couldn’t believe the day she had to look _up_ at him had actually come—to see his profile outlined by the sun, reflecting off the brassy hair pulled back into a ponytail and highlighting the sharper angles of his face. He’d certainly changed since the Promised Day. The boy she'd grown up with, the one who had tried to bring his mother back, the one who became a dog of the military to fight for a chance to get his and his brother's bodies back had definitely grown up.

Ed wasn’t looking at her. In fact, he seemed to be very pointedly keeping his gaze trained in front of them, mouth set in a hard line and his suitcase swinging back and forth between them like a border he kept drawing and redrawing.

She wanted to ramble on about all the things he had missed while he’d been off studying, because of _course_ even after life-changing events like saving an entire country, he still couldn’t be bothered to call home, but she could feel an odd air of tension hanging between them. It had lingered from the moment he stepped off the train and she had hugged him in greeting. And she had a sneaking suspicion as to why.

“Edward,” she said.

He nearly dropped his suitcase on her foot. “Huh, what?”

Winry sighed. She had to do everything herself, didn’t she?

“Are we going to talk about what you said before you left?”

His face flooded with red like a river crashing through a dam. “Uh, well, if—I mean, if _you_ want to talk about it, we can, um—”

She let out another exasperated sigh. “You meant it, right?”

“What? Of course, I meant it!” His eyes flashed with outrage, and then he looked away, embarrassed. 

“Then why are you acting so goddamn jumpy?”

He let out a cry of offense. “I’m not acting _jumpy—”_

“You literally are!” Winry couldn’t _believe_ she’d actually fallen for someone so stupid. “You propose to a girl in the stupidest way possible and then you can’t even be straightforward about it afterward!”

Ed made a yelping sound. “You—” He stopped and then his face scrunched in anger. “Hey, don’t call it stupid!”

“I’ll call it how it is, which is: _dumb as fuck._ ” Winry huffed. “You’re so immature.”

 _“Immature?”_ He screeched. “How am I immature?”

“I just said, ‘propose,’ and look at how flustered you’re getting!”

Ed glowered at her. “Oh yeah? Well, who was the one who freaked out when she said she’d give her whole life and then backtracked to 85 percent?”

Her face flushed traitorously red. “ _You_ were the one who asked using stupid Equivalent Exchange!”

“Yeah? Well—” Ed cut himself off as if realizing he had no rebuttal to that.

“Well, what?” She snapped.

“Nothing!” He swallowed. “Nevermind.”

They glared at each other as they walked down the road and she realized it was the first time she’d looked directly into his eyes since he had stepped off the train. His face had gone as red as that stupid jacket he used to wear, and Winry was sure her face matched based on the feel of how hot her cheeks were burning.

She could imagine her grandmother saying, _Peaceful as always with you two, isn’t it?_ But Pinako was back at the house and not on the road with them, so Winry was left alone to deal with the idiot walking beside her.

Her heart fluttered wildly in her chest. Ed’s eyebrows were scrunched together and his face was too red and it said too much. She couldn’t bear it, so she looked away.

“How’s your automail?” She grumbled.

She felt him turn his eyes back to the road in front of them. “It’s...functional.”

“You better have taken care of my automail,” warned Winry.

“I did, I did!” Ed protested. “It’s fine, it just feels stiff sometimes.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’ll take a look at it when we get back.”

And just like that, the weird tension was gone, a bandage ripped off. Ed was grumpy again, Winry was carrying the conversation again, and they walked down the familiar roads of Resembool. A lot had changed since her childhood friends had left with one body and two limbs short and returned as saviors of their country. But these roads stayed the same. Even if they had burned their house, their true home in Resembool remained.

Then, down the dirt path, Rockbell Automail appeared at the top of a hill. She shot a glance at Ed and saw his eyes soften as a small grin spread across his face.

“We’re back,” said Winry.

“Yeah.”

As they approached the house, Den, who had been idling on the porch with his head resting on his paws, looked up. He spotted Ed and immediately perked up, standing and then racing down the path towards them.

“Hey, Den!” Ed laughed. “Did you miss me?”

Den yipped excitedly and leaped towards him. Ed managed to set down his suitcase a second before the dog’s paws landed on his chest and knocked him to the ground.

“He’s glad you’re back, too,” smiled Winry.

Den barked in agreement and then bent his head in an attempt to desperately lick every inch of Ed’s face. It was the most adorable homecoming.

The door creaked open and Pinako appeared. “Oh, you’re back,” she said before placing her pipe back in her mouth.

“Hey, Granny.” Ed waved around Den.

“I see all that studying out west didn’t change you at all. You’re still just a bean sprout.”

“ _Bean sprout?”_ Ed sat up and cried with indignation. “What do you mean? I’ve gotten taller!”

“Really? You still look short to me.”

“I’m sitting on the ground, you old hag!”

“Are you now? I couldn’t tell.” Pinako blew out another puff of smoke before turning around and walking serenely back inside. “Now that you’re back, I’m off to get some automail parts in town. Don’t burn the house down while I’m gone,” she called.

Ed glared at the open doorway. “Did she really stay long enough just to insult me before going into town?” He grumbled.

Winry laughed.

It really did feel like coming home.

“Down, Den,” she called.

The dog took his paws off Ed’s chest and backed up. He looked at Winry, pink tongue flopping out of his mouth as he panted excitedly.

“Go play over there,” she commanded.

Den barked one more time and then ran off somewhere behind the house.

She huffed out a laugh before she turned to Ed and held out a hand. “Here,” she said.

Ed eyed her hand warily. She could see his hand curled into the ground twitching nervously.

Winry bit back her irritation. “ _Immature,”_ she taunted.

Ed glared at her and then grasped her hand with his—with the right one, the one that used to be metal. His palm was warm and rough, so unlike how it used to be, and before she let herself think about it any longer, she yanked him to his feet.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, stepping away.

Winry rolled her eyes.

Her hand tingled as she watched Ed grab his suitcase, but she ignored it as she quickly turned to hide the growing warmth on her face and headed into the house. Pinako wasn’t in the kitchen, so Winry assumed she had left through the back door. 

“Let’s go to the workshop and take a look at your leg, yeah?”

Ed grunted and she took it as a yes.

He followed her into the workshop and took a seat on the couch while Winry pulled her toolbox down from one of the shelves.

“Can’t believe Granny’s still calling me a bean sprout,” grumbled Ed as she knelt down in front of him. “I’ve gotten taller!”

“You have,” sighed Winry sadly. “I can’t make fun of you for being smaller than me anymore.”

She opened her toolbox and grabbed a wrench. The sound of metal clanging against metal filled the room as she started working on detaching his leg.

“Well...good for you, right?” Ed mumbled. “‘Cuz you said you didn’t like boys who were shorter than you…”

Winry’s head shot up and she saw him quickly jerk his head to the side, hand shooting up to cover his face. It didn’t do anything though, because she could still see the red spreading underneath his skin and beyond his hand.

Her face heated and she was suddenly glad that he had looked away. Winry quickly looked back down to focus on loosening the bolts that were keeping his leg attached.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She knew exactly what he was talking about.

“That fight Al and I had when we were younger…” She could feel him shaking his head. “Well, whatever. It doesn’t matter. It was dumb fighting over a stupid girl who’d only marry you ‘cuz you got taller than her anyway.”

Winry rolled her eyes. “Well, lucky for you, that stupid girl liked you when you were short, too.”

Ed jerked up in his seat, nearly knocking the wrench out of her hand.

She groaned. “ _Ed,_ can you hold still for one _fucking_ sec—”

“Wait, _WHAT_!” He yelled. “You WHAT? When did—you—you WHAT?”

She disengaged the leg and pulled it off, pulling a yelp out of him. Hefting the leg in her hands, Winry carried it over to the table and kept her back turned to him as she yanked the light over the metal leg. She felt like a coward escaping to the table, but still she was glad that he couldn’t follow her there without his leg. 

“You bastard! Get back here!”

“I’m a little busy working on your _leg,_ Ed _,”_ snapped Winry.

She’d never admitted that out loud before, and with her feelings now just out in the open and floating in the air between them, she didn’t know what to do now.

“You can’t just—” She heard him swallow. “What do you _mean_ you—like, like when I was—”

Her heart stumbled around inside her chest, trying to jump out of her ribcage like she wanted to jump out of her own skin. God, she was so glad he couldn’t see her face right now.

“It means what you think it means,” she muttered. “When you and Al were still trying to figure out how to get your bodies back, there was a moment—I mean, I don’t know _when_ I started to—to, um, but when I was on the train back to Rush Valley, you promised that you’d make me cry tears of joy next time you saw me…” She swallowed. “I...I realized, then.”

Winry unscrewed the plating, checked the wiring along the thigh and the calf, and moved the joints to test the mobility. There was some debris in the joints and although the metal didn’t look corroded, she could tell Ed had skimped out on higher quality oil to clean his automail.

“That was three years ago.” He sounded like he was short-circuiting.

She ignored the odd rush of embarrassment that tumbled through her and rolled her eyes. “ _Yes,_ Edward.”

Winry ran a cloth along the metal plating and squirted some oil around the joints. She fiddled with the wiring, screwed the plating back on, and turned around to bring the leg back. Ed was looking at her again and she nearly halted when she saw how red his face had gotten. It made hers flame up again.

“You’ve—” Definitely short-circuiting. It was a shame his head wasn’t made of automail like his leg, otherwise she’d crack it open and rewire his brain so he could get a coherent sentence out again. “So, all this time, you’ve—”

“ _Yes._ ” Her irritation swelled, briefly overshadowing her embarrassment. She tried to lean into it as Ed sputtered on.

“Three years—”

“ _Shush._ ”

She pulled a padded stool over and propped his thigh up on it. She held the leg up to the metal stump and grabbed a hex key from her toolbox. She positioned the leg until all the inner locks and pistons lined up and then placed the hex key into the divot to connect it all back together.

“Wait, Winry, you can’t just—”

She turned the hex key and Ed yelped.

“ _Ow!_ What the hell? I thought I told you to warn me before connecting the nerves!” 

“Yeah, yeah.” She took a step back. “Stand up. How does it feel?”

Ed looked like he wanted to say something else, but he tore his gaze away from her and rose from the couch. She watched him bend his knee, rotate his ankle, and take a few experimental steps before finally nodding.

“Better,” he said.

“That’s good,” she said. “You know, automail is really incredible technology that could last much longer if you were actually taking care of it like I _told_ you to before you left—”

“Shut up, gearhead!”

“Don’t call me a gearhead. I’m just saying I _told_ you to take care of your automail. And at least I’m not an alchemy freak!”

“So what if I’m an alchemy freak? Apparently you’ve liked an alchemy freak for three years—”

“Shut up!” Her face flared red, from anger or embarrassment she didn’t know. “Don’t—” He wasn’t supposed to say that out loud. _She_ was supposed to be the direct one.

“Who’s the immature one now, huh?” He stuck his tongue out at her.

Winry lobbed a wrench at him. “Still _you!_ ”

Ed yelped and jumped out of the way. The wrench thumped against the wall and clattered to the ground with a muted _thud._ Winry’s face burned, heart rabbiting wildly in her chest, and one look at Ed’s face made her want to crawl under the table and hide.

He looked at where the wrench lay and then back at her, eyes wide and wild. His face was as red as it had been the day he’d shouted “Equivalent Exchange!” at her before he left.

Her heartbeat pounded loud in her ears, pulse like the thunderous chugging of a train. She was breathing hard, Ed was too. Both of them winded from yelling and bickering and not knowing what to do when they didn’t hide words behind other words.

Maybe they were both a little immature. And maybe she was tired of being flustered and embarrassed by their feelings. She knew how he felt and he knew how she felt, so why was this so hard?

“Gearhead,” he muttered again.

Winry sighed. “I don’t know why you’re so surprised. I mean, I _did_ say I’d give you 85 percent of my life.”

His face flared a brighter red and he looked away. “I just—I didn’t know you had—I mean for _that_ long—”

“Are you trying to make fun of me?”

“No!” He protested. “No! I’m not. I’m trying to—” He swallowed. “Because Equivalent Exchange, right? You told me that you—you, uh, for three years, that you—so like, it’s only fair that I—”

Her mouth fell open. As she watched him fumble for words, something warm unfurled in her chest, like a flower in bloom.

“Don’t look at me like that!” She saw him swallow, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “I just—because Equivalent Exchange, I want to say—wait, wait Winry, what are you doing—”

She had moved towards him, stopping until they were only inches apart. She reached up and grabbed the sides of his face, feeling the heat of his skin burning hot against her palm and growing hotter by the minute.

He kept talking in circles and Winry just wanted it to be simple—no turning away, no hiding behind Equivalent Exchange, no dancing around words. Maybe no words were needed at all.

“Winry—”

“You’re so stupid,” she mumbled.

His face shifted under her hands as he kept sputtering like a car engine trying to start over and over again. “Don’t call me stupid, I’m trying to—”

Winry pulled his face down to meet hers and smiled when another patch of heat bloomed underneath her palms.

Ed stopped sputtering after that.


End file.
